Keep It Up… DAD!

Happy belated Father’s Day to all the dads out there! I had a really nice Father’s Day celebration with my own dad on Saturday. Oh – I’m back in the states now! I flew from Sweden to Detroit on Wednesday, and after a couple quick days at my parents’ house outside Detroit, the three of us drove to the west side of Michigan for the weekend. My sister Laura joined us from Chicago, and went out to dinner in St. Joseph, Michigan (you can read about past adventures in St. Joe here). Here’s my dad and me from Saturday:

My dad has been on his own very significant weight loss journey – he’s lost 40 pounds since February! This is the first time I’ve seen him since he started losing weight, and he looks fantastic! Here’s how he did it:

He started making changes after a week-long funk. He felt ready to do something different. So he started switching what he ate. He was inspired to eliminate refined and processed sugar from his diet from a lecture he watched online called “Sugar: The Bitter Truth” (watch it here). It’s a simple change, but one that can be hard to implement. He started reading labels, and stopped eating anything with sugar or sugar substitutes. He also gave up most processed carbs.

There are foods he used to eat pretty regularly, like flavored yogurt, that he stopped eating altogether. He used to love mixing cottage cheese with jelly (something he’s eaten since he was a kid), but he no longer eats jelly, so that snack is off the menu. He still eats naturally-occurring sugars, like those found in whole, fresh fruit. He doesn’t eat things like bread very frequently. He doesn’t count calories, and while he’s aware of fat, his focus of his diet isn’t eating low-fat (he eats a lot of nuts, as well as cheese and full-fat salad dressings). But eliminating sugars, and sticking to that plan, has really worked. He’s not perfect (he makes an exception to his no-sugar rule by adding sweetener in his morning coffee), but he’s very consistent.

In addition to the weight loss, my dad has reported lower cholesterol and blood sugar. He’s had a lot of pain in his knees, and now there’s less. He still wants to lose 10 more pounds, and that will put him at 180 pounds. We went for a walk the other day, and I asked him how long it’s been since he weighed 180, and he couldn’t remember. At least a decade, perhaps two or even a little more.

Oh, and did I mention that my father is pushing 70? He reaches that milestone next February. Just goes to show that it’s never too late to make a change. What great is that he sees this as a plan that he can continue long into the future. He won’t be reaching for celebratory candy once he reaches his goal weight – he’s gonna stick with it.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad! I love you, and am very proud that I can share this story with all my readers. One more thing…

Congrats on your Dad’s weight loss. I, too, gave up processed sugar. I do use Polaner All Fruit w/Fiber Jam. It’s sweetened with fruit juice only. No added sugars.I buy it at Busch’s in Farmington Hills as they have the greatest range of flavors. I prefer the Black Cherry. My Dad also put jelly on his cottage cheese!–it must be a Dad thing.

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In A Nutshell

A big hello to everyone that’s discovering Keep It Up, David for the first time! I’m glad you’re here.

My name is David. I live in Los Angeles, and I’m 38 years old. In January 2010, I began eating better and exercising more, so I could lose weight. So far, so good – I’ve lost and kept off 160 pounds! But it’s a tough road, and I need to keeping finding new ways to keep motivated and on-track. I’ll blog about my progress and share my struggles and successes. Join me on my journey!